Published: July 24, 2008 09:46 pm         

There’s no shortage of energy, only a shortage of vision

Wake up, America.

It’s time to mend our wasteful ways.

First, though, let’s take a look at how we got ourselves into the current energy shortage.

Ever since the Pyramid Age, human societies have organized themselves around the pursuit of ever-increasing amounts of energy.

The major source of that energy, until about 100 years ago, was the sun, the solar life-giver and resource needed for growing crops. Material progress occurred, but so slowly that it wasn’t visible during a single lifetime.

Then, with the coming of fossil fuels, what we call “progress” was enormously accelerated. In the space of one long lifespan, more energy was produced and consumed than in all the millennia of previous human existence.

On the positive side, our past 100-year energy binge has brought us unprecedented material wealth and, temporarily, a great deal of control over nature.

The giant conglomerates (including OPEC) that have grown out of the century-long energy spree, however, now have the muscle, at any given moment, to manipulate currency, alter our lifestyle and even initiate actions leading to war — perhaps even to the point of producing a nuclear holocaust.

Even so, the seemingly automatic rise in production and consumption of energy that we have experienced in the past now apparently has come to an unexpected halt.

Individually, no doubt, we all would like to see our current energy indulgences continue.

Perhaps they could: If only we could come up with some new oil strike, synthetic fuel, perfectly clean and safe nuclear fission or nuclear fusion — we could go on playing the same old growth game with the same old rules.

The fact is, however, that even if we had unlimited amounts of oil, we couldn’t go on using it at the rate of increase that we have equated with prosperity in recent years.

The message to our young people, in the meantime, has become a distorted picture of reality; self-indulgence and the needs of commerce come before anything enduring or unifying in our culture.

If it is true that man does not live by bread alone, it is also true that human beings cannot find meaning and purpose in comforts, goodies and conveniences alone, even if they are offered in ever increasing abundance.

And yet, it seems that all of our social planning for decades has been based on a single principle: The doubling of energy requirements every 10 years.

It should have been apparent from the beginning that whenever you see anything of consequence doubling every 10 years, you’d better watch it closely, because sooner or later it will either level off or crash out.

The proponents of continued fast-growth-and-damn-the-consequences try to frighten us with grim scenarios in which, unless we follow their lead, we will return to the Stone Age or find ourselves sitting motionless in the chill darkness of an unheated winter night.

But actually this will come to pass only if we persist in our current pursuit of fast energy growth (with no clear national energy policy in sight) and suffer the crash that will inevitably follow.

People by the millions simply refuse to hear the truth. They do not accept the fact that America’s prosperous and self-gratifying oil binge is finished.

Instead, they seek scapegoats (as in the case of Nancy Pelosi attacking George Bush’s administration instead of offering helpful solutions); they turn to conspiracy theories to explain the end of the oil bonanza, the end of their automatic reward system.

We can sympathize, however, with the reluctance of established leaders to be the bearers of bad news. And yet, we must urge them all to bite the bullet and speak the truth.

After all, the present so-called energy shortage might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

The end of merely material progress might mean the beginning of a new era of human progress.

Is it possible that, in our haste to exploit material resources, we have neglected the full development of our human resources?

Is it possible that in our reckless rush to build giant, impersonal institutions and educational systems, we have neglected the building of communities of neighbors and friends and people with common interests?

Is it possible that in our energy-fueled efforts to dominate the earth we have forgotten to nurture and take nurture from the earth?

Perhaps it’s time for us to reduce energy waste and live in harmony with the planet.

“Where there is no vision,” Solomon wrote many centuries ago, “the people perish.”

In the final analysis, there is no real shortage of energy on this planet, only a shortage of vision.



Top o’ the morning!

— Blankenship is a columnist for The Register-Herald.

E-mail: jabbb@suddenlink.net